


Shame On Me

by insistentbass



Series: Your Mouth To My Heart [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, M/M, Post-Season/Series 04, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, References to Drugs, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:02:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27391660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insistentbass/pseuds/insistentbass
Summary: 'It’s a storm and Sherlock can do nothing but stand on the rocks next to him and let it weather his friend, hoping the force of it hasn’t eroded too much when it passes.'
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Your Mouth To My Heart [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2001055
Comments: 22
Kudos: 83





	Shame On Me

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there, Ao3. It’s been a hot minute. 
> 
> This is a new series set after S4. Heads up, this is me getting real and gritty - expect angst, bad coping mechanisms etc. There will be a decent amount of fluff along the way, but these men are a bit broken, it's going to take some work.
> 
> I would love to tell you it all gets solved with a kiss, but this version of their relationship is more complicated than that. (Especially when your secret murder for hire wife died for your best friend, who she previously shot, who only just came back to life after faking his death and also has a secret sister that tries to kill you both). Y'know?
> 
> To the faceless readers – I truly hope you’re all okay and safe out there in these strange times. 
> 
> Enjoy if you wish to do so!
> 
> B x

_Shame on me 'cause I can't help falling at your feet  
It makes me mad to see you leave like that  
I'm so lost, running circles in my head  
If I jump, will you catch me in your arms _

_Hold My Breath Until I Die – Tegan and Sara_

//

Most of the time John is sad, so Sherlock stays on his side of the living room and picks up Rosie only when she crawls towards him.

These weeks go by the slowest, as if everything is trying to progress but it only knows how to pause. There are cases, and sometimes Sherlock goes alone, like back in the day when each night would end in three hours of lost memory because there was no one to hear his stories. When John appears, he has dark pewter skin under his eyes and his hair is so slicked back it looks mechanical. It’s almost as if he isn’t there, and Sherlock sometimes wishes he wasn’t.

Everything in this period is pale, scrubbed out as if someone has plastered the billboard of his mind one too many times, and nothing is sticking anymore. The distance between them grows, and only the small plump feet of a tiny child fills the gap. They smile for her even when they don’t want to. Gradually layers of John peel away until it’s just naked loss and exhaustion. A sickness that settles now because their puzzles have all been solved, and his wife is still dead.

Sherlock lets it happen. He watches the icy cold waves batter John’s body, he tastes the salt of it in the air around them, in the kitchen as he makes tea and the vibration of his violin notes as they evaporate on John’s skin. It’s a storm and Sherlock can do nothing but stand on the rocks next to him and let it weather his friend, hoping the force of it hasn’t eroded too much when it passes.

The only true constants are Friday evenings, when Sherlock returns from Sherringford and finds his flat isn’t empty. It never is, on those nights. John and Rosie are there, playing on the carpet or fast asleep in his armchair. They still don’t really speak, but there’s an understanding, a trying that promises a glimmer of hope. John pours them both a whisky and they just sit opposite each other, together in their solitary miseries, the tiny anchor of Rosie between them.

During the summer, cases wear thin. Either people just aren’t getting murdered or kidnapped or Greg is just forgetting to tell them. John comments that perhaps it’s on purpose, as he fastens Rosie into her pushchair and makes for the door. Sherlock refuses to believe Lestrade is clever enough to orchestrate a cover up on that scale, but he concedes that things are too quiet. Those weeks of stagnation are the worst, finding excuses to see each other without work to do becomes more difficult, but neither give up.

Autumn is tense, painted with pain and the fatigue of constant therapy, and sometimes Sherlock doesn’t know what day it is or who he is, at all. He finds himself mentally cataloguing John’s jumpers just so he can keep track of how many times they’ve seen each other. Some visits are long, and the words between them exceed the need to be counted, other times they are so short it’s like he was never there at all. The cocaine is secreted under the floorboard in the bathroom, and they both know it. Occasionally Sherlock can tell it’s been prised open, but John never takes it. It’s an exercise in trust, and not one either is willing to fail. Most of all it’s just strenuous, a slow process of reminding each other who they are, what they’ve overcome, and why they’re still needed.

Eventually, as falling leaves turn to bare branches and white out skies, the tape catches and things start playing again.

Something still lingers there in the middle of them, but Sherlock can now take Rosie from her father’s arms without anxiety seizing his entire body. John even makes them food now and again too and smiles when Sherlock pulls faces at his daughter across the table. Cases become more frequent finally, and they see more of Molly. They get calls from Greg and he even shows up a couple of times. It’s all becoming easier and settled - and it’s all fine except when it isn’t - but that’s okay, for now.

//

They are both soaked through and angry on one of the times when it isn’t okay.

Sherlock’s pissed to the point where he’s sure steam is rising from his suit, as they both return through the door of Baker Street. Thankfully Rosie is with Mrs Hudson downstairs, because he’s about to lose his fucking mind at the man standing in his kitchen. John takes off his jacket and goes to the cupboard, pulls out the first aid kid, knocking glasses and several of Sherlock’s experiments off the counter as he opens it up. No one has spoken and Sherlock is trying to breathe, contain the air in his chest and let it out through his nose before he says something he can’t take back. Instead, he watches the patch of red bleed out across the back of John’s shirt, a tie dye of injuries and rainwater.

“What were you thinking” He starts, a fist against the kitchen table taking the brunt of his restrained anger.

The doctor doesn’t answer, too busy running cold water over the rope burns on his wrists.

“I told you to let me handle it” Sherlock continues, removing his own jacket and unbuttoning his shirt cuffs while pacing the small space between them.

The mood only gets worse as John laughs darkly, shaking his head. Raindrops fall from his neck line, tripping over the goosebumps that have started to rise from his skin. He’s prepping wipes and stitches and Sherlock is thirteen seconds away from turning him around by the shoulder if he’s ignored any longer –

“Here, I need you to do this”

John holds out the alcohol wipes and steri-strips without looking him in the eye. He takes them, and watches as cotton peels away from the damaged flesh of John’s chest and back. There are bruises beginning to form abstract against his sternum. Where only freckles should be, there are cuts from knuckles and a deeper one just below his collarbone from the edge of a blade. Sherlock is furious at each of them, and even more so with the man they litter.

They stand there for a moment, John looking over Sherlock’s shoulder at some undetermined point in space, with one hand gripping the edge of the kitchen table to steady himself. Sherlock waits until the tendons in his hand stop jumping before he takes a few steps and begins to sterilise the wounds.

Although they touch fairly often, this is the first time for perhaps months that it’s been purposeful. The silence is quite deafening, and that anxiety Sherlock thought was on it’s way out comes creeping back in, crawling tiny fires through his veins and into the tips of his fingers as he works. It’s been a while since he’s had to tend to John like this – it’s only happened a handful of times before, and never on this scale. Case upon case Sherlock has turned down. Any he could predict inciting potential danger, including a good few the likes of which he may never come across again. So carefully he screened John’s emails to erase anything that could end up where they are right now. Yet still, somehow, the battered man in front of him managed to seek out harm and let it ruin his flesh.

In an attempt to push down the anger, Sherlock flips back through the picture book of blemishes and scars he remembers from John's skin, compares any changes there have been since the last time. Most are faded, or coloured purple anew from the force of a booted kick to the stomach.

When Sherlock flicks his eyes up finally, he finds John’s own are closed. Lips pressed thin, he’s breathing through his nose with his brows set low. There are so many things he wants to say and scream at him, all of which seem pointless now. Wounds and skin and bones take precedent. Sherlock commits each touch to memory, keeps them for his own selfish pleasure.

“I’m sorry”

The words are so quiet and slowly formed from John’s mouth that he barely hears them. But they are resolute.

“I know, I shouldn’t have”

Blood creeps tendrils into the edges of John’s eyes, staining the white with the lateness of the hour and the trauma he’s just endured. Sherlock only glances up from his work on John’s chest, can’t stop now because doing so would mean letting his tongue speak all the things they shouldn’t. One thing he’s learned about the man before him – if he talks, let him.

“Rosie. There’s Rosie “

Exactly Sherlock’s point. No longer is John the unattached bachelor, his only responsibility the Browning in his pocket. He has flesh and blood of his own to take care of, his and his alone to protect. Rosie, the bright precious star they both orbit, the gravity that keeps them tethered. The body he is healing is needed, and Sherlock will not be responsible for the death of another Watson.

“But there’s also you. Sherlock – and I can’t, I won’t let you take any more punishment”

Sure, he’s only been in therapy a few months, but even a sociopath can spot bullshit from a mile away. And that’s what it is, they both know it. There’s no conviction behind those words, John’s not even doing a good job of persuading himself. Sherlock can feel the muscle under his touch constrict with the deception.

“Save me the lie, John”

For a moment Sherlock thinks he may actually protest, but instead John wets his bottom lip and looks at him, blank.

“Well what’s the truth then”

Yet again they’re balanced on the edge. Sherlock is atop Bart’s, one step away from the street below. John is sat in his kitchen, a note, glass of whisky and his gun on the table. Fragmented men trying to piece the other back together, breaking more parts as they go. The truth has rarely appeared between the two of them. How can it, when they spend most of their time constructing impenetrable mazes around themselves, dead ends of guilt and memory, until they’re both so boxed in neither can remember the way out. They’ve both lied and been lied to so much, it’s hard to face the possibility that truth may be the only thing left.

“You’re not saving me from punishment, you’re just punishing yourself”

John actually has the gall to roll his eyes, and Sherlock’s not sure where he’s picked up this temper but it flares like an unwelcome monster in his belly. He grabs John’s wrists so forcefully it elicits a painful intake of breath, holds them in front of them both palms up. If John’s knuckles weren’t already sore and broken, Sherlock may have just been on the receiving end of them. Instead, he looks at him vacantly, as if knowing the words before they hiss from his lips.

“ _This_ – didn’t need to happen. The situation was under control and you purposefully made it worse”

Moments like these make Sherlock wonder just how much of John is left. In the half light of the kitchen, he can’t quite see the blue of his eyes, it’s all darkness and deep set brows, the shadows there almost murderous. Most disconcerting, because he can’t see himself reflected in the kaleidoscope of ice and caramel anymore. There’s no mirror for Sherlock to measure himself against, and maybe that’s the problem. Maybe if he could catch sight of the ugly lines on his face, he’d stop.

“Your self-flagellation is obvious. This isn’t you, John”

For a second there’s a flicker of sadness, the vein beside John’s left eye jumps and his nostrils flare momentarily. Then the soldier is back, and he snatches his wrists out of Sherlock’s grip. Purses his lips, and nods as the wave of conflicting emotions tide over his face.

“And what exactly _is_ me, Sherlock? Hm? Tell me that”

The sea green mottling on his skin looks angry, surrounded by raincloud purple. Sherlock blinks several times, trying to search for an answer that isn’t once again coated in a slick wash of untruths. There aren’t any though. None that would end well, at least. As much as he’s frustrated and betrayed by John’s stupidity, the man has been broken enough for one night.

“I’m just trying to –“

John cuts himself off, scrubs hands across his face and through his hair. The greys are startling in the dull of the kitchen. Sherlock wants to smooth them out and say he’s sorry, but he doesn’t know what for. Here they are again, trapped in an infinite loop of hurt, their pressure points both naked and wanting in the artificial light. John sighs and it isn’t just a release of air, but a valve on the pressure building between them, forfeiting the game. He turns and places both hands on the kitchen table, bowing his head in defeat.

“To feel something” John whispers. “I just wanted to feel something”

The tension cracks and lightning bolts down Sherlock’s spine. It’s been nearly a year since they’ve even come close to sharing their grief. One solitary embrace and John closed right back up again, both of them stubborn in their complacency for repression. Even now with the good days outweighing the bad, there are things that are off limits.

Sherlock’s hands are steady again now, so he moves slow and gentle in the fragile air, presses them both to the damage at the back of John’s ribs. All he wants to do is heal. Heal his skin, heal his wounds, heal the frail life they share.

“Let me help”

In every scenario he’s run through, this never happens. It always takes something heated and cataclysmic to force the dominoes to tip, but never is he the one to push them over. John doesn’t flinch at the contact like Sherlock’s models all predict. He doesn’t shrug him off or spin around in distaste, even though this touch is quite clearly different. In fact, John doesn’t do much of anything at all except breathe, leaving Sherlock clueless and cold and stepping out into no man’s land completely unarmed.

Instinct, then, is his only weapon. That inch or two of distance between them now is critical. If he so wanted, Sherlock could close it with his hips and push until John’s pelvis meets the table. Tempting, but too much. Settles instead, for playing his fingertips along tarnished ribs until they come to rest on John’s thinned out waist. He’s not been eating enough, in between running around after Rosie and following Sherlock’s fast pace. For a moment he’s side-tracked by recalling each time he’s seen John have a meal over the last few weeks, not many at all. And then he remembers where he is and what he’s doing and how one wrong move could bring down the hollow foundations they’ve been building under themselves.

Suddenly his head spins a bit, and Sherlock has to screw his eyes closed in order to stay vertical. Seeking stability, he presses his forehead between John’s shoulder blades and breathes out through his mouth. That serotonin is pinching his veins again. His hands tighten and white spots bloom in the pitch black behind his eyelids.

“Sherlock”

John’s right hand closes over Sherlock’s left. He straightens, so Sherlock’s forehead finds the base of his neck instead. Blood, sweat and another man’s smell linger on the skin there. Given long enough, he could probably decipher the aftershave used by the criminal responsible for the desecration, but he gets distracted. Betrayed by his own lips, that seek out the unmarred centimetres of skin just below John’s hairline.

It’s much less difficult without eyes on him. Sherlock can almost suspend belief just enough that this could be in his head. The last year has been an out of body experience. He’s sure most of the important parts of himself are still at Musgrave, smeared on rough headstones and secreted away at the bottom of a well. Perhaps this is just the tail end of a particularly long and lucid drug binge. Being close to death and unable to claw back to the present, is much easier than justifying his open mouth against John’s neck. Simpler than explaining why his nails are digging into the already hurting skin stretched across John’s abdominals, why his entire body is shivering to be touched back.

“Sherlock – “ John turns his chin to meet the path Sherlock’s lips are making towards his jaw. “I want this”

Another sinew of reality snaps, and Sherlock hears a noise come from the back of his throat as if it isn’t his own. Whatever overgrown tangle of denial and excuses that used to be between them has been slowly clipped away. Through the suffering and depletion, the time spent apart, the pull has become undeniable. They are both older, both worn and empty, and the energy required to keep the play going has been drained. Sherlock just wants to give in.

“But we can’t, we’re not – _fuck_ ”

Fuck, because somehow those inches have been forgotten and Sherlock is pressing against him, the fine cotton of his shirt sticking to the damp of John’s back. The plane of skin his mouth has been travelling has ended, and once again he's stuck trying to find his reflection in John’s eyes. They are more opaque than ever. He falters, halted by the invisible line between their lips. Once he’s tasted them, there’s no going back to pretending he hasn’t. All pretence and years of friendship will be over.

“This is too much” There’s sound, but it ghosts low across Sherlock’s jaw. “We can’t –“

But John’s already cheating, taking Sherlock’s lower lip between his own so delicately it’s barely there at all. Synapses are misfiring, fizzing out of control in the heat of John’s breath in his mouth. He smells dirty and tired, and the earthiness of it is painfully alluring. The thought that he could do anything to John right now and he’d let him, is almost enough to make him break.

The remains of his self-control are fading away like flaking paint in front of him. If Sherlock were to push his tongue past John’s teeth, it would undo all the stitches they have been weaving between them. Replace those thin threads with something needy and unsightly, a grotesque version of what could be beautiful, given half a chance. Neither of them deserves that. As much as they want it - John _wants_ him - it can’t be like this. Sometimes they still can’t even stand to be in the same room for more than twenty minutes. How then would they redeem themselves after this, both taking advantage of the other for a few moments of relief. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, bathed in hurt and torment.

“You’re right” Sherlock breathes, the oxygen cutting at his teeth as the words leave and dance across John’s cheeks.

They look at each other, John’s throat audible as he swallows whatever he was about to say. Sherlock wonders for a moment if he’s made the right decision. There’s a vast landscape of emptiness in his friend’s eyes suddenly, the horizon of his lips set in a solemn line. He’s still stained with crimson, rich reds darkening on his skin. The copper would taste bitter, and it takes all of Sherlock’s resolve not to try it.

Desolation blooms and wanes across John’s face, but soon he’s the soldier again. Heavy eyelids blink away the wet pooling there. He sniffs and lifts his chin away. Suddenly Sherlock feels vulnerable and alone, takes a few steps back while he still has the muscle memory to move.

“John –“

Before Sherlock can form a sentence, John’s gathering the first aid off the table and takes his bloodied shirt from the counter where it lies atop drying dinner plates. The cold between them is instant and vast. Sherlock wants to grab his arm and stop him, say he was wrong, they’re both wrong, they can do this even if it’s only for tonight. But he doesn’t. Instead he watches his heart walk towards the bathroom. John doesn’t look back as he closes the door behind him.

The space between his temples is throbbing. Sherlock presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and takes a moment there in the Hopperesque kitchen. The opportunity was there and now it’s gone. Lost again in the black hole that swirls between them.

Salt sweat from John’s jaw still lingers on his lips. Not today, he thinks.

He heads out of the door, Rosie’s muffled giggles filling the corridor downstairs as he grabs his coat and leaves. The night is dark and all encompassing. Sherlock lets it take him, and wishes for dawn to return swiftly.


End file.
